The Second Message

At 4:06 A.M., twenty-five minutes after Agent Nathan Cole's transmission ended, another message appeared on the secure BIA terminal.

No sender.

No traceable connection.

No authentication code.

Only one sentence:

COLE IS NOT THE AGENT YOU SHOULD BE LOOKING FOR.

Below it appeared a number.

17.

The analysts searched the database.

Agent 17 did not exist.

There was no personnel file.

No photograph.

No mission history.

No fingerprints.

Nothing.

But when investigators searched the physical archives, they discovered something the computer system could not explain.

Locker 17 was still there.

The Locker With No Owner

BIA headquarters contained a secure storage room where field agents once kept equipment between assignments.

The lockers were numbered sequentially.

Nobody had noticed the missing number.

There was no label marked 17.

But behind Locker 16, investigators found a narrow metal panel covered by years of paint.

Removing it revealed a second door.

Stamped into the metal were two characters:

17

The lock had no keyhole.

Instead, there were five rotating dials.

A puzzle.

Someone had deliberately hidden this locker inside BIA headquarters.

Five Numbers

The first instinct was to force it open.

Director Hale refused.

"If someone wanted this destroyed," he said, "they would have destroyed it."

He examined the five dials.

"This was meant to be found."

The team returned to the photograph of Agent Cole from Classified File 001.

Three fingers raised.

Two folded.

They had assumed the gesture meant File 32.

Perhaps they had been wrong.

3 — 2

Two numbers.

They still needed three.

Then an analyst noticed the timestamp on Cole's final transmission:

3:41 A.M.

Combined with the hand signal:

3 — 2 — 3 — 4 — 1

The dials clicked.

Locker 17 opened.

Inside

There was almost nothing inside.

A black jacket.

An empty holster.

A photograph of downtown Hollywood, Florida.

A key with no markings.

And a BIA identification card.

The photograph on the card had been scratched away.

The name had been removed.

But the identification number remained.

AGENT 17

On the back, someone had written four words by hand:

I FOUND THE MOLE.

The Agent BIA Forgot

Investigators searched older records.

Payroll.

Training reports.

Building access logs.

Mission assignments.

Medical files.

Nothing contained Agent 17.

It was as though someone had erased an entire person.

But erasing a person completely is difficult.

People leave traces.

A signature.

A photograph.

A forgotten email.

A name written in the margin of someone else's report.

Eventually, they found one.

Inside a twelve-year-old surveillance report was a handwritten note:

Cole + 17 assigned to Blacklight.

The document had been signed by Nathan Cole himself.

Agent Cole knew Agent 17.

More importantly...

they had worked together on Project Blacklight.

Project Blacklight Was Older Than Anyone Thought

BIA believed Project Blacklight began six years earlier, shortly before Cole disappeared.

The surveillance report proved otherwise.

Blacklight had existed for at least twelve years.

Someone had changed the agency's records.

Dates had been rewritten.

Files had been removed.

Mission logs had been altered.

And an entire agent had been erased.

This was no outside attack.

Someone with high-level access inside BIA had been hiding Project Blacklight for more than a decade.

The warning from Cole suddenly made sense.

Trust the clues. Not the people.

The Photograph of Hollywood

Investigators turned their attention to the photograph found inside Locker 17.

At first glance, it showed an ordinary street in Hollywood, Florida.

Cars.

Storefronts.

Pedestrians.

Nothing unusual.

But the photograph had been taken twelve years earlier.

One building appeared again in the recent photograph of Agent Cole.

Same windows.

Same entrance.

Same location.

The team placed the photographs side by side.

Then they noticed something impossible.

A woman stood in the background of both photographs.

Same face.

Same coat.

Same hairstyle.

Twelve years apart.

She had not aged.

The Woman in the Photograph

Facial recognition produced no match.

BIA searched driver's licenses.

Passports.

Criminal records.

Government databases.

Nothing.

Then an analyst reversed the image and enhanced a reflection in a nearby window.

The woman was carrying something.

A briefcase.

On its side was the same symbol discovered in File 001:

a circle divided by three intersecting lines.

The symbol associated with Project Blacklight.

Director Hale ordered every available record containing the symbol brought into the investigation room.

There were only seven.

Six had been heavily redacted.

The seventh contained a name.

EVELYN VOSS

Status:

DECEASED — 1989

The photograph had been taken decades after her reported death.

The Key

The final object from Locker 17 was the small unmarked key.

It did not fit any known BIA lock.

Microscopic examination revealed three tiny letters engraved along its edge:

HWD

Hollywood.

The team searched municipal maps, archived building plans, old BIA safe houses, and abandoned surveillance locations throughout the city.

No match.

Then one investigator asked a different question.

What if the key did not belong to a door?

The answer came from an obsolete BIA equipment catalog.

The key matched an old portable cipher device used by field agents before modern encrypted communications.

Only twelve had ever been issued.

Eleven were accounted for.

The twelfth had belonged to...

Agent 17.

The Cipher Machine

BIA located the missing device in an evidence room.

It had been sitting there for years.

Nobody knew why.

The key fit perfectly.

When turned, the machine came alive.

A narrow strip of paper emerged.

Letters appeared one at a time.

C O L E

Pause.

I S

Pause.

N O T

Pause.

M I S S I N G

The investigators stared at the message.

Then the machine continued.

H E

I S

H I D I N G

A final line appeared.

F R O M M E

The machine stopped.

Nobody spoke.

Because there was only one logical question.

Who was me?

Then the Phone Rang

The investigation room contained a secure telephone.

It had not been connected to an outside line in nine years.

At 5:12 A.M...

it rang.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Director Hale answered.

Silence.

Then a woman's voice spoke.

Calm.

Almost amused.

"You finally found his locker."

Hale looked toward the photograph.

Toward the woman who had supposedly died in 1989.

"Who is this?"

A quiet laugh.

"Ask Nathan."

The line went dead.

At that exact moment, every light inside BIA headquarters shut off.

For seven seconds...

the building was completely dark.

When the emergency lights returned, one object was missing from the investigation table.

The photograph of Evelyn Voss.

In its place was a black envelope.

Inside was a single card.

WELCOME TO BLACKLIGHT.

Who Was Agent 17?

According to the fictional records of the Boxroom Intelligence Agency, Agent 17 worked alongside Nathan Cole during the earliest known investigation of Project Blacklight.

Someone later removed every official record of Agent 17's identity.

The surviving evidence reveals three important facts:

• Agent 17 discovered a mole inside BIA.
• Agent 17 worked directly with Nathan Cole.
• Agent 17 possessed information about Project Blacklight that someone wanted erased.

But the identity of Agent 17 remains unknown.

And the mysterious Evelyn Voss, officially dead since 1989, may somehow connect all three.

What Is Project Blacklight?

Project Blacklight is part of the fictional story surrounding Operation Saving Hollywood, the detective and spy-themed escape room at Boxroom Escape Games in Hollywood, Florida.

The classified-file series follows BIA investigators as they uncover hidden evidence, coded messages, missing records, and a possible conspiracy operating from inside their own intelligence agency.

The story emphasizes the same kinds of skills used in a detective escape room: observation, teamwork, communication, pattern recognition, logical reasoning, and connecting clues that initially appear unrelated.

No single piece of evidence tells the entire story.

The investigators—and the players—have to connect them.

The BIA Files Continue

Agent 17 has been erased.

Nathan Cole is alive.

Evelyn Voss appears in photographs decades after her reported death.

And someone inside BIA has been protecting Project Blacklight for years.

But the most dangerous discovery is still waiting inside the black envelope.

Because beneath the card marked WELCOME TO BLACKLIGHT...

investigators find something else.

A list of BIA agents.

One name is circled in red.

Someone currently inside headquarters.

Next: BIA Classified File 003: The Mole Inside BIA

Enter the World of Operation Saving Hollywood

Operation Saving Hollywood at Boxroom Escape Games in Hollywood, Florida is a detective-themed escape room adventure built around investigation, clues, puzzles, teamwork, and uncovering hidden information.

Your team steps into the role of investigators and must examine the evidence, recognize patterns, communicate discoveries, and work together to complete the mission.

The BIA Classified Files expand the fictional world surrounding the adventure without revealing the actual solutions to the escape room.

The files contain the story.

The mission is waiting for you.